Metcalfe and Monroe Counties

Full audio transcript. 

“It was something that was born in them from their, if not their parents, their grandparents. And it's just, it's a great way of life and they understand that. And you could take, my belief, you could bring anybody out of about any city and put them here and let them stay with me a week or two and they would fall in love with what we do here.”

Full audio transcript. 

"AF: Was there a time that was like one of the best, best times to be a farmer or that things were- ?

JW: I'm going to say in the 70s was the best.

AF: What made the 70s good?

JW: Well milk was a good price, tobacco was a good price. All your expenses weren't nearly as large. It was just a good time to be farming you know. The 80s come along and all that interest doubled, and it killed us here.

RW: The 80s broke everybody.

JW: Yeah, it broke the whole business and then they started over. We made it but we just did. But the 70s was probably the best time. I'd say from the 50s to the 70s you know, was the best time. I had an uncle between here and Lee Grant that had a farm that he paid for one year with hogs, in the 50s, and hogs went to 60-some cents. Of course, back then that was unheard of. He had a, he had a bunch of hogs, and he paid for that farm that one year."

Full audio transcript.

“I think people just need to follow their heart and follow their dreams. They say if you can dream it you can do it. I think they need to know that it's not a “life of Riley” in the beginning, it's not, but there are rewards in the end. And another thing is to have patience. You know, like if you're going to cut hay today and it rained, find some other something that you can do, don't just give up and say, “oh, well, it's raining today, I can't do anything.” You’ve got to be able to switch, I guess change in a day’s notice somewhat, and if you plan on something, you have to plan and you have to look at the long term, but just take it day by day and do what needs to be done for that day and not get too bent out of shape if something goes wrong."

Full audio transcript. 

“I would like for people to respect farming more. And I would like for more young people to be willing to get involved in it. I'm not sure- we've said a lot of different things on how we think that works and why it doesn't work. But there needs to be more respect for farmers in general. And we need to be respectful ourselves, to the public. We need to be grateful for the public you know, using our product, they don't have to. Well, we already said that we're- the reason for human life is through farming. But I guess there's other ways they could buy product.”

“So at one time it was like a buck, you could go get a gallon of milk at the Dollar General. Like, “How can they do this?”  How can they raise the cow, milk her, haul it cross country, pasteurize it, package it, and bring it back to the store?  That dairy farmer can't be making the money.”